CZW Cage of Death 17

Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) is an American independent professional wrestling promotion founded in 1999 by John Zandig. Commonly associated with the 2000s hardcore wrestling genre, early CZW shows showcased a brand of wrestling dubbed by the promotion as "ultraviolence". Early CZW matches featured items such as ladders, tables, steel folding chairs, thumbtacks, barbed wire-covered baseball bats, weed whackers, light tubes, and panes of glass. The promotion filled a niche for hardcore wrestling fans that had been left open by the folding of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in 2001. In 2009, CZW's founder John Zandig sold the promotion to CZW wrestler D. J. Hyde. Although hardcore wrestling remained present in CZW shows, under Hyde the frequency of hardcore matches would gradually decrease. Throughout the 2010s, CZW was part of the Triangle of Unity (also known as the Triangle of Ultraviolence) alliance with Japanese promotion Big Japan Pro Wrestling and German promotion Westside Xtreme Wrestling. In 2016, CZW was covered by Vice Media in the documentary Bloodlust: Tournament of Death. After a long hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, CZW returned to promoting events in 2021. After its return, CZW stopped holding hardcore matches, apart from their annual Tournament of Death. CZW events have since been held in Blackwood, New Jersey and Havre de Grace, Maryland, along with stops in other east coast venues. In 2024, CZW again placed an emphasis on hardcore wrestling, with the promotion bringing back its Cage of Death event and seeing the returns of its alumni like Nick Gage and Rickey Shane Page.